Sorry, I was struggling for a topic today to start off with, I know a bit about classic menswear, and I had observed this but hadn’t thought of writing about it until now.

They are. And I know this is something that just screams for pictures and I will get those for you [Edit: Got one! see the security guard further down] (I’m going to have to covertly photograph a half dozen or so tie-sporting Colombian men in order to illustrate my point here, so that’s just great). We can do a bit of that right now, though, just to give some context. By far the most popular knot in the English-speaking world is the four-in-hand, two examples follow:

I don’t know what the Colombian guys here are using, it could be a Windsor (fun fact: the Duke of Windsor after whom it is named never actually wore it and if you observe male members of the royal family today you’ll see them using four-in-hand knots almost exclusively) but it looks even larger than that (and the Windsor is considered a big knot). If I can get a conversation started with someone wearing a tie in the manner I’m describing I’ll ask them for the name of the knot (very nicely of course, not “holy shit what is that thing it’s YUUUUUGE?!”). Here’s one example of what I’m talking about in Colombia:

He was a private security guard somewhere here in Cartagena. It’s hard to find this phenomenon here because very few guys wear ties because of the climate. I’ll get more examples for you when I go to Medellin.

Girls in Colombia

You really think I’m going to wade waist-deep into this minefield? Hah, no. I’m going to dip my little toe in, that is to say I’m just going to make a quick cultural observation that will probably interest you and I seriously doubt is going to be very controversial: Colombia is a conservative country and the behavior of the women here reflect that.

When I say “conservative”, I mean relative to the U.S., Canada, U.K., most of the rest of Western Europe, etc. What I mean more specifically when I say the women are conservative is that, as someone traveling through Colombia, you’re going to have a very hard time starting any real sort of relationship or hooking up with them, because the second they find out you’re leaving in a few days, weeks, or even a couple of months, they’re going to decide then and there this isn’t going to get serious (and sex is “serious” for them, just to be clear). You can get a very pretty, very sweet girlfriend or wife here, but you’re going to have a hard time getting girls like that into any kind of casual/short-term relationship.